How many times have you asked your mother to not put 'ghee' or 'tel' in your food just because you didn't want to get fat? Or completely gave up on sugar to go on some weird diet plan that was supposed to help you lose weight? Well turns out, giving up the basic ingredients of Indian food is not that a great idea.
According to celebrity nutritionist Rujuta Diwekar, "when you minus ghee, tel, namak & shakar from home cooked meals, you minus the invaluable contribution of grandmothers who prepared food in sync with climate, crop-cycle & culture. To fortify our health, we must plus heritage recipes and minus pollution and processed foods."
Experience speaks!
We, as a fast-paced civilization, are leaving behind all practices are ancestors used to follow. The basis of those rules or practices was years of experience and scientific research.
There's a reason why olives don't grow in India as much as they do in the Mediterranean region. They have certain temperature requirements that Indian climatic conditions cannot provide. What we do have is mustard. It grows in our environment and has all the nutritional value that we, as tropical people, require.
Mustard oil
In this time and age, where canned foods are considered healthier than organically grown food items and 'exotic' sells more than 'natural', it's time for us to go back to our roots and bring back the practices that our ancestors followed.
For starters, using cast iron utensils instead of artificially coated 'non-stick' cookware and earthen pots for water than plastic containers would be better. Buying locally grown seasonal foods in place of exotic items will benefit our bodies a lot more than packaged food.
It's time we went back to our roots.
